


Boys Without a World

by Muccamukk



Category: Avengers (Comics), Captain America (Comics), Iron Man (Comic), Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avengers Vol. 3 (1998), Bittersweet, Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Kid Fic, M/M, Parallel Universes, What Even Is This Fic?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 19:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7695721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/pseuds/Muccamukk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Steve struggles to find meaning in a world where Tony did not return after Onslaught/Heroes Reborn, an apparent stranger wearing Iron Man's armour may offer him answers, or maybe just more questions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boys Without a World

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [nim-lock](http://nim-lock.tumblr.com/)'s gorgeous tiny reverse bang art [long day](http://capim-tinybang.tumblr.com/post/148194260462). For which everyone else wrote adorable de-aged Tony fic, and I killed off multiple Tonys and included his fictional offspring. Also for my Stony Bingo Square: "in loco parentis."
> 
> This fic is set in a universe where Tony died saving everyone from Immortus during The Crossing, and did not come back post Heroes Reborn. I also kill off an additional Tony and Steve in another universe. No one comes back form the dead. You have been warned.

Steve used to be pretty good at sleeping on planes. During the War, he'd probably got more shut eye on rumbling troop transports than any other single place, and the bunk in the back of the quinjet was surprisingly comfortable. Now, even flying business from Tokyo to LAX to New York, he didn't get a hell of a lot of rest.

Everything was too new. Steve felt like he was waking up from the ice all over again, and all over again finding the world had changed without him. At least this time had only been one year, not sixty, but he still felt like he was running as hard as he could and failing to keep up with all the changes.

Foremost in his mind was that no one had seen Tony Stark, or Iron Man, or even the teenaged version of Tony that had been around for a while after Immortus. Steve didn't know if he was actually dead this time, or if he'd just gone to ground, as he so often did when he was in trouble. He'd tried to contact James Rhodes from Japan, but hadn't had any luck, and that too worried the hell out of him. He tried not to worry that every other Avenger had been given a new life, but Tony had not, because even thinking about that broke his heart. But every time he closed his eyes and tried to rest, the image of Tony dying in his arms floated up, and the thought that that would be the last time Steve ever saw him rose up and choked him. They'd wasted so much time, making eyes at each other, and never doing a damn thing about it, and now it was too late.

Rhodes must have gotten his messages, because he was standing at the arrivals gate when Steve checked through at LaGuardia. He was dressed a lot more formally than Steve usually saw him, full charcoal suit with the tie just loosened, but his harried expression and and the bags under his eyes made him look worn and unkempt.

Steve took a breath and tried to roll the stiffness out of his back and shoulders before he went to meet him. "Have you seen Iron Man?" he asked, even before they shook hands.

Rhodes grimaced. "That's a complicated question right now," he said. "You better come to the mansion."

Steve didn't say anything else until they picked up Rhodes' jeep, but once they were headed for Manhattan, he demanded, "Have you seen Tony or not?"

"Tony, no," Rhodes said, he was pretending to focus on his driving, but traffic was light and Steve knew he just didn't want to look Steve in the eye. "I haven't really seen my Tony since China, before..." his fingers wiggled on the steering wheel, trying to take in everything that had happened in the last few years. Steve nodded. "Haven't seen that teenage Tony, either, not since everyone else vanished in the big fight last year."

"So who's at the mansion?" Steve asked, trying to ignore the ache in his heart, the image of Tony coming to himself for those few minutes before he died.

"That's the problem," Rhodes said. "We don't know."

"Pardon?"

Rhodes then explained, voice tight, still not looking at Steve, that Iron Man had appeared at the mansion not long after Steve had showed up in Japan. Jan had found him when she'd gone over to make sure the last of S.H.I.E.L.D. had cleared out, but whoever was in the armour wouldn't respond to her, or to anyone else. He, or she, just kept insisting on talking to either Steve Rogers or Tony Stark, and had kept on insisting for about a day and a half now. "He won't talk even to me, and he won't come out of the kitchen. It's driving me crazy," Rhodes concluded.

"You don't think it's Tony then?" Steve asked, "or some other version of Tony?"

"Hell if I know." Rhodes lifted both hands off the wheel and held them up, palms out, before slapping them down and accelerating around a slower car. "Whoever it is, something's wrong with them, that's for sure." He offered Steve a sideways look and a tight smile. "Oh, I forgot to say: welcome back, Cap."

"Thanks," Steve said dryly, but couldn't think of anything to add to that, so let the rest of the trip pass in silence. Only after they pulled up the mansion, did something in Rhodes' description strike him. "Wait, you said he asked for Steve Rogers? Not Captain America?"

He got that thin-lipped smile again from Rhodes. "You got it."

"All right," Steve said. He took off his jacket and tie, leaving them in the jeep, and rolled up his shirtsleeves. "Let's go."

"Wasp wanted to give you two space," Rhodes said, "She's up on the roof somewhere, if you need back up." Off Steve's raised eyebrow, he added, "I'm not in the game right now. Not much a nine mil can do against Iron Man."

Steve nodded. It was him on his own, then, unarmed. That was fine. He'd risk whatever he had to if it meant a chance to find Tony again.

It felt eerie to go into Stark Mansion and not find Jarvis at the door, and more unsettling still to have the house silent and empty. "Hello?" he called as he entered the dining room, lifting his voice enough to carry through to the back of the house. "You in there, Shell-head?"

He heard the whirr and thud of Iron Man's armour trying to walk softly. It sounded a little awkward, clumsy, even. Was Tony injured? If so, why was he waiting for Steve? Why not let Jan or Rhodes take him to the hospital?

"You okay?" Steve asked, moving towards the sound. Iron Man pushed through the double swing doors from the kitchen just as Steve reached them, and they ended up nose to chest. Steve tipped his head back, not backing away. This armour had more silver and smoother curves than the last model he'd seen, but he recognised Tony's design sense. "Iron Man?" he asked again. "It's me. It's Steve."

The armour hissed and started to dismantle, and Steve stepped back to let it open. He had to move in again to catch its occupant as he fell forward. It was a slight, dark-haired boy, maybe eight years old, whose olive complexion was sallow with exhaustion or shock. He fell from the blocks he'd been standing on right into Steve's arms, all ribs and elbows under a Cap-themed hoodie, without even socks or shoes.

"Daddy!" he said, and wrapped himself around Steve's neck, burying his face in his shoulder and starting to cry.

"Um," said Steve. He froze, shocked, then curved his arms around the boy's back and held him close. "It's okay," he soothed, knowing already that it was anything but. "I'm here now." Then he paged Jan and Rhodes, because he was damned if he knew what to do next.

Jan had even less idea about kids than he did, but Rhodey had babysat his nephews and told Steve to tuck the kid in bed, any bed, and make some warm milk and something sweet, and then to run a full bio scan and DNA analysis.

The kid didn't say much as Steve carried him upstairs, but limpetted onto Steve's chest so tightly that Steve had to peel him free to get him into the bed in his old room. From the abandoned bowler, he assumed Dugan had taken it over in his absence, but the sheets looked clean, and most of his old pictures were still up. He found the familiar space comforting, and hoped the boy did as well. Steve wanted to ask him his name, so he didn't have to keep calling him that, but worried it would upset him even more. He looked at Rhodes imploringly.

"Hey kid," Rhodes said, crossing around to the far side of the bed because Steve was still holding the boy's hand. "My name's Jim. What's yours?" His voice was low and gentle, and Steve made note of it, hoping to copy it if he had to.

"Jimmy," the boy said, still not taking his bloodshot blue eyes off Steve. "Jimmy Stark. I'm named after you."

"Okay then," Rhodes said, glancing at Steve with wide eyes, but he didn't lose his cool.

"Where..." Steve started, then cleared his throat, because he could see Tony in the kid's cheekbones and his thick dark hair, and he could see Sarah Rogers in the blunt cheekbones and blue-grey eyes, something squeezed more tightly around his heart with every breath. "Where did you come from, Jimmy? Where's your dad?"

And Steve sucked at kids, because that just made Jimmy start to cry again. His small hands clung to Steve's shirt and Steve leaned in to let Jimmy hug him again. It ended up being easier just to settle on the bed and let Jimmy sprawl across him, still crying noisily against his shirt. Steve looked at Rhodes who held his hands up helplessly, then waved Jan off as she came in with the milk, cookies, and portable bio scanner.

"Probably just let him cry himself to sleep," Rhodes said, softly. "He looks done in."

"Yeah," Steve said, and patted Jimmy's back. It didn't make him stop crying, but he did wriggle against Steve like he was settling in for the long haul. "Jan?"

She'd set down the plate, and was fussing with the pick up for the scanner, eventually pushing back Jimmy's hair and attaching it to the back of his neck. The kid was either used to it or didn't even notice. "I don't think there's anything actually wrong with him," Jan said after a minute, "Other than dehydration and probably shock." Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Rhodes mouth, "blood sample" at Jan, but Jan shook her head. She did discreetly pick up a discarded tissue and slip it in a sample bag. "I'm just going to–" she fluttered her hands then turned and walked away, "–go down to the lab for a bit. Call if you need me."

She'd left the scanner set up, and it beeped calmingly as Steve held onto the small, weeping child and wondered what the hell was going on. At least the sobs had started to thin out and become more like snuffles, but Steve still didn't feel like he could move, and oddly, he didn't think he wanted to.

When Steve looked up from the dark head pressed against his shoulder, Rhodes was watching with that same wide-eyed expression he'd worn when Jimmy had told him his name. "I'm going to go see if there's any data stored in that suit," he said, circling the bed to follow Jan, "and scan for mutant neutrinos or something."

Steve glared at him, but honestly couldn't think of anything useful that Rhodes could do while staying here. "Call Sam Wilson," he whispered urgently, and Jimmy hiccuped then settled again.

"Wilco," Rhodes acknowledged and shut the door softly behind him.

Jimmy yawned, stretched, and apparently fell dead asleep across Steve's chest. Steve kept patting his back, just in case, but let his own head fall back against the pillows. What was he going to do now? The kid had called _him_ "daddy" but said his last name was "Stark," which made him, what? His kid? His and Tony's kid? Presumably from another universe, one where Steve had done more than just look at Tony admiringly.

Anything concrete would have to wait for Jan and Rhodes' data. Wherever Jimmy was from, he'd clearly been traumatised, and was scared enough to stay in that armour for days until one of his "parents" showed up. He'd been asking for Tony or Steve, Rhodes had said.

Steve squeezed his eyes shut and hugged Jimmy tight. Whoever this kid was, he obviously needed someone to look after him, and since Tony was still missing, maybe even still dead, Steve seemed to be the only one he trusted. If it came to it, Sam could sort out some of the legalities, or Steve hoped he could. He vaguely recalled precedent for extra-dimensional children, possibly involving the X-Men, and it was the kind of thing Sam might know from his social working days.

Until he had more information, Steve decided that he'd just hang on to Jimmy. He felt himself drifting off a few minutes later, and did nothing to try to stay awake.

He dreamed of Tony, again throwing himself into the line of fire, again dying in Steve's arms with an apology on his lips. In the dream, Steve held him for longer, feeling that if he didn't let go, Tony wouldn't really be gone, but when he looked again, it was Jimmy in the armour, Jimmy dead in his arms.

"No!" he gasped, and woke up.

"So how was that other universe?" Sam asked as Steve stirred and tried to blink the dream away and himself fully awake. The room was dark save for the yellow glow of the reading lamp, meaning Steve had been out for at least six hours. He rolled over to find Sam, still trying to pull his mind away from the nightmare. A spike of panic shot through Steve, as he realised nothing had kept him from rolling on his side, but then he felt Jimmy curled up next to him, under a blanket, and Steve breathed again.

Sam slouched on the floor with his back against the wall, reading a paperback. Steve slid down to lean against the bed, moving carefully so as not to disturb Jimmy's sleep.

"I don't remember much of it," he said in answer to Sam's first question. "Did you miss me?"

"Not really. Been pretty busy." Sam hadn't looked up from his book, but a smile crinkling his eyes, that old teasing look that made Steve clap him on the shoulder and grin.

"Well I missed you, partner," Steve said, then he heard Jimmy murmur in his sleep and remembered to keep his voice down. "You guys find anything while I was out?"

"Not me," Sam said, "Been on Cap-sitting duty since I got here, as usual. But Jan says the kid's DNA does line up pretty well with yours and Tony's, and she doesn't think it's got the right whatever for cloning or other manipulation. Jim found a data file in the suit, but it's encrypted, so he's working on that. Meanwhile, it shows some kind of zero matter something or other signature, which he said he'd have to get Richards to look at, since no one's heard from Stark yet."

Steve dropped his head, trying to scrub the sleep out of his eyes with the heels of his hands. He wasn't sure what dimension he was in right now, let alone what time zone. He meant to ask what Sam thought of the situation with Jimmy, or about the custodial implications of a child that was genetically yours but that you hadn't actually... done whatever one had to for two men to reproduce, or ask if Sam knew how the hell _that_ was possible, but what he actually asked was, "Do you think Tony's dead, Sam?"

Sam sighed and stretched out his legs until the toe of his sneaker brushed Steve's ankle. "I think you saw him die, partner." His voice sounded as gentle and conciliatory as Rhodes talking to Jimmy, and it made Steve's heart hurt.

"I know," Steve groaned, head still in his hands. "I just thought, with all those other universes, and everything going on, that..." He couldn't finished the thought. "He's always come back before."

"I don't think he's actually been dead before," Sam said. "I'm sorry, Steve."

"Thanks." Steve levered himself to his feet, feeling exhaustion in every bone, like he had when the serum had stopped working. "I should go talk to Rhodes. You okay watching Jimmy?"

Sam waved him off with his book, and Steve headed downstairs to the labs.

Rhodes had one of Iron Man's gauntlet's spread out across the table, components arranged in tidy rows, some kind of micro computer at the centre of his attention. He'd wired it into his phone, which now appeared to be dead. "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi," he said without looking up. "You're my only hope."

"That bad?" Steve asked.

"I'm pretty sure Tony encrypted this," Rhodes replied, "so there's no way little old me is decrypting it." He set his tools down and pushed his chair away from the bench with enough force that it rolled right over to Steve. "Have a go if you like."

"I can give it a shot." Steve took a breath, then bent to say to the phone, fully not expecting what he said to work, "Armour override. Captain America. Code–" he didn't get to the code. The phone came back to life at the sound of his voice, first showing a little spinning loading animation, then a blurry video.

Rhodes leaned in to watch over his shoulder, and Steve heard his breath catch at the face that appeared on the screen. The man in the video was wearing a full beard instead of his moustache, and had a gash dripping blood from his temple into his left eye, but was unmistakably _Tony_.

"I don't have long," Tony said from the screen. "I hope it's you that's getting this, Steve, another you from a safer universe. My Steve is... well he left three days ago, and I haven't heard anything. We can't hold out much longer. I've rigged one of my suits to travel through a dimensional instability we detected. Hopefully... I already said that, didn't I? I don't have time for this. Whoever you are, please look after our son. He's a good kid. When he's old enough, show him this. Tell him his parents died defending the Earth. And, Steve, if you're there, no matter what universe you're in, no matter who you are there, I love you."

The video cut out, and the screen turned dark again.

Steve had braced himself so hard on the table that his fingers were indenting the steel. He said nothing. What was there to say to all that?

"Damn, Tony." Rhodey let his head fall against Steve's shoulder for a moment, then took a shaky breath and straightened. "Why do you always have to be a hero?" When Steve turned around, Rhodes was crying openly, and Steve wished he knew him well enough to know if he'd would appreciate a hug or if he just wanted to be left to mourn in peace.

More than the fate of the other Tony, no matter how affecting, Steve knew that what this video had driven home was that their Tony was gone. Rhodes had been holding out against the world for over a year now, waiting for his friend to come back, like he'd always come back. It was only now that he seemed to understand that there would be no more miracles, not for him, and not for Tony Stark.

"Hang in there, okay?" Steve said, and brushed shoulders with Rhodes. He felt his own throat tightening, and tears pressing at the backs of his eyes, but he couldn't afford to weep, not right now.

"Sure," Rhodes said tiredly. "Don't worry about me, Cap."

Steve did worry though, and told him, "Don't forget, the Avengers have your back, if you need them, if you need any of us." Rhodes didn't reply, so Steve left as quietly as he could.

Jimmy was just sitting up when Steve got back up to his old room. He seemed to know Sam, or at least wasn't afraid of him, but he wasn't talking either. Sam glanced up at Steve, then did a double take and stood to pull Steve into a brief sideways hug before stepping away to give him enough space to crouch in front of the bed.

"Hey, Jimmy," Steve said softly, trying to shape his voice to match Rhodes' early soft tone. "You got a bit of sleep, huh?"

"Yeah," Jimmy said. He was rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, as Steve had earlier, and something about that made Steve warm and protective. "Where's Dad?" 

"He's not here," Steve said, and had to bite his lip, hard, to keep his voice steady. "Look, we don't know each other that well yet, but your dad asked me to look after you for him, and I'm going to do my best, okay?"

"Okay." Jimmy was watching Steve, searching his face for some cue that Steve had no way to identify, let alone provide. "But you're not Daddy, are you?"

"No," Steve said, "But I'll try to be your family." For Tony's sake, his friend, and a chance at true love missed and now gone beyond reach. For Jimmy's, an innocent without a world. Even for his own, God help him. "How does that sound?"

Jimmy didn't say anything, but leaned forward to wrap his arms around Steve's neck again.

"You got any idea what you're in for, partner?" Sam asked softly.

Steve shook his head. "I guess I'll figure it out as I go," he said.

"We'll figure it out," Jan corrected from the doorway, meaning herself, of course, but also, Steve knew, Rhodes and Sam, and all the rest.

"Yes," Steve agreed, "we will."


End file.
